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Conservation Resources 
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SOIL SURVEYS-FORESTRY 



SPEECHES 



OF 



HOiN. CHAUNCEY M?DEPEW 




OF NEW YORK 



SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 



MAY 7 and APEIL 30, 1903 



WASHINGTON 
1908 



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SPEECHES 

OF 

HON. CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 



FORESTRY. 

May 7, 1908. 

The Senate, as in Committee of the. Whole, having under considera- 
tion the bill (H. It. 1915S) making appropriations for the Department 
of Agriculture for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909 — 

Mr. DEPEW said: 

Mr. President : I listened with great interest to the remarks 
of the eloquent Senator from Idaho when this bill was last 
under discussion. He illuminates every subject which he touches, 
but some of us are compelled to differ with him upon his prem- 
ises, his facts, and his conclusions. If we were back at the 
time when the country^was all forests and wilderness and 
there were few settlements, his argument would be most im- 
pressive, but even under such conditions the flaw in it is 
that as scientific forestry is now understood and practiced 
the early settlers, instead of sweeping off the woods with reck- 
less haste and waste, would have preserved a portion of them 
for the benefit of themselves and their posterity, both in wood 
supply and for water. 

There are few subjects upon which the American people are 
so keenly alive as this one of forestry. I do not believe there 
is any branch of the Government where the appropriation com- 
mands more general approbation. The forests on the public 
domain are an estate belonging to the whole people of the United 
States. The cost of their houses and food largely depends in 
the future upon scientific forestry. It has been our habit always 
to get all possible out of the present without reckoning the 
future. We nearly killed off our game and exterminated our 
song birds and insect-destroying birds for sport before we be- 
came alive to the necessity of their preservation. 

We had reduced the fish in our rivers to a point where this 
food was no longer available at prices which brought it within 
reach of the people before we adopted a system of fish hatch- 
eries. In some of the rivers when shad was thus propagated 
the fishermen, who thought the price might be reduced by an 
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abundance of fish, attempted to assassinate tbe commissioners 
of the State. Within our recent memory we have been de- 
pleting the forests of the country. It has been done by the 
most wasteful methods. The business has made some 'of the 
largest of multimillionaire fortunes. Now, in the older States, 
tree planting is considered as necessary for agriculture or for 
profit as tree cutting in the olden time was essential for the 
clearings. 

The State of New York has within the last few years spent 
nearly two millions of dollars in purchasing what remained of 
primeval forests in the Adirondack region. They were being so 
rapidly depleted by wasteful lumbering that the effect was 
already disastrous upon the navigation of the rivers, water for 
the canals, irrigation of the farms, and the prevention of floods. 
It was only day before yesterday that a shipment of a million 
trees arrived in Now York City from Germany in this movement 
to reforest the Adirondack region. 

We have in the United States now a supply of timber suffi- 
cient only for the next thirty years. When we consider the 
economical uses of wood this is appalling. It will be a serious 
blow to the poor man seeking to secure a home and independence 
when his material must be either steel, brick, or concrete. The 
cost then becomes prohibitive. Already hard wood for furniture 
and domestic purposes has so risen in price as to prove a seri- 
ous tax upon the homes of the American people. Every tree 
that is cut down for ties for the railroad requires two growing 
ones to replace it, and forests are cut from year to year to sup- 
ply the tremendous demands of our 200,000 miles of railroads. 
Every one of our great dailies exhaust in'a short time 10 acres 
of spruce cut for wood pulp. There is no doubt that if our 
forests were thrown open as heretofore a few great lumber com- 
panies would make enormous fortunes, but at an expense to the 
whole people of the United States in generations to come which 
would be a thousandfold more than the fortunes thus accumu- 
lated in one generation to be dissipated in another. 

Mr. Cleveland, who did many things in his Administration 
for which he will receive the praise of posterity, commenced 
the policy of forest reserves. He placed under the protec- 
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tion of the Government about 20,000,000 acres, but for several 
years there was no policy of administration for the forests. 
On the contrary, they were practically locked up. This left 
them subject to forest fires and timber thieves. Unpopularity 
of this isolation of a product of public necessity led whole 
communities to condone the stealing of the wood. In 1S98 Mr. 
Gifford Pinchot was asked to take the head of a Bureau of 
Forestry. He was at that time the only thoroughly educated 
and experienced forester in the United States. There wore 
only two others besides himself who had ever given attention 
or study to the business. He was, happily, so situated as to 
independence that he could lay aside careers which were open 
to him iu the professional and business world, where large 
accumulations might have been had, to devote his time, talents, 
and experience to the public service. This he has done for 
ten years with astonishing and most beneficent results. When 
he took up the work the United States had but . 40,000,000 
acres of this locked-up and unadministered forests. Now there 
are one hundred and fifty millions, but so managed that the pub- 
lic of the whole country are deriving inestimable benefits from 
their preservation and use. Mr. Pinchot, as a profound student 
of this question, had not only learned methods and results in 
older countries, but experimented practically upon the estate 
of. a gentleman who was deeply interested in the preservation 
of the woods. 

It is an illuminating experience for an American to travel 
over the continent of Europe and to see the care and scientific 
skill with which governments there look after the woods. I 
know of communities in Germany where the forests, owned in 
common by the municipality, pay the entire taxes by their 
annual yield under a system by which they are kept unim- 
paired. Happily for Switzerland, the early inhabitants, over a 
thousand years ago, saw the effects upon their hillsides and val- 
leys of the destruction of the forests. After visiting deforested 
mountain sides and devasted valleys in the United States, it is a 
liberal education to see the Swiss mountains cultivated up to 
the snow line, the farm houses perched so high that they look 
like fairy cabins in the air, and the trees so growing as to 
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catch and hold the rainfall and the water from the melting 
snow. Except for this intelligent care Switzerland would to- 
day be uninhabitable, these farms would long ago have disap- 
peared from the mountain sides, the valley farms would have 
neen destroyed by torrents, and the streams rendered useless by 
the uneven fall of the water. There is almost as much care in 
Switzerland, Germany, and France of the tree as there is of a 
human being to prevent injury or to punish injury. 

These countries not only keep their forests up to a full state 
of efficiency and replacement, but they derive an income of from 
$3 to $5 an acre from them. There was more wastefulness of 
tbe forest in France than in any other of tbe European coun- 
tries; but in repairing this France has been spending about 
$50,000,000 in reforestation. During the last year the floods 
destroyed in some departments of France twenty-five to thirty 
millions of property and ruined thousands of families. The 
French have found that this was wholly due to cutting the 
trees from the hillsides, and it has led to an enormous increase 
of efforts for reforestation. 

I had occasion at one time to study the Appalachian situa- 
tion in our own country, and I came to the conclusion that with 
the deforesting of the Appalachian Mountains, which has al- 
ready taken place, there has been a loss along the rivers which 
find their sources in these hills of more than $20,000,000. a 
year. 

Mr. BRANDEGEE. Mr. President 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does tbe Senator from New York 
yield to the Senator from Connecticut? 

Mr. DEPEW. Certainly. 

Mr. BRANDEGEE. Let me suggest to the Senator that not 
only are floods caused by deforestation, but the floods are suc- 
ceeded by droughts, which destroy tbe navigability of the 
streams. 

Mr. DEPEW. That is absolutely true. The droughts not 
only destroy the navigability of the streams, but the streams 
are filled up. 

One of the greatest triumphs, in my judgment, of Mr. Pinchot 
and of his able assistants has been that he has captured the 
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intelligent lumbermen of the country- The lumbermen of the 
country see already the necessity of the work he is doing. I 
think it was at the last meeting of the Lumber Association of 
the United States that they passed resolutions to endow a chair 
of forestry in one or more of the universities of the country. 
Of course there are some great interests that are still opposed 
to this forest-reserve policy — and those great interests are 

sustained by honest, well-meaning, and intelligent people 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. Mr. President 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from New York 
yield to the Senator from Wyoming? 
Mr. DEPEW. Certainly. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. I dislike to interrupt the Sen- 
ator 

Mr. DEPEW. It is all right. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. But for my personal information 
I should like to be advised as to what the great interests are 
and of whom they are composed that are opposing the forest 
policy? 

Mr. DEPEW. I understand that many of the great sheep 
interests are opposed to the forest policy, and I understand that 
many of the cattle raisers are opposed to the forest policy, and 
I understand that many lumber companies — and they have come 
into these forests in spite of everybody and everything — are 
opposed to the forestry policy. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. The Senator, however, would not 
attempt to specialize as to what lumber interests are in favor 
of the policy and what lumber interests are opposing it? 

Mr. DEPEW. No; I would not do that; but I know human 
natui'e and how it works, and I know how it has worked in the 
past. I call the Senator's attention especially to how the lum- 
ber interests have worked when they have had their own sweet 
will, unrestricted by the Government or by anything but their 
own judgment, in Wisconsin, in Minnesota, and in Michigan. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. I would ask the Senator whether 
or not he is informed that the largest private lumber interests 
in the world, the Weyerhauser interests, are in favor of the 
exact policy which the Forest Reserve Service is now carry- 
ing on? 

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Mr. DEPEW. Because they have been converted. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. After having acquired, substan- 
tially, all of the lumber in the United States save that which 
is owned by the Government. 

Mr. DEPEW. Mr. Weyerhauser has got enough. lie knows 
that if the Government should yield what it has, he would get 
that; but he does not want nor think it wise to have it all in 
private ownership. 

Mr. FLINT. Mr. President 

The VICE-PItESIDENT. Does the Senator from New York 
yield to the Senator from California? 

Mr. DEPEW. Certainly. 

Mr. FLINT. I would 'suggest to the Senator from Wyoming 
that if the forest reserves had not been created the timber 
that has now been preserved and is in the forest reserves would 
be in Mr. Weyerhauser's possession, and he would have control 
of every bit of the timber in the United States. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. I am afraid the Senator from 
California misapprehended my position. I want to assure him 
that I am in favor of forest reserves and not against them. 

Mr. FLINT. I understand that. 

Mr. DEFEW. Mr. President, under the administration of 
Mr. Pinchot the work of forestry has been carried to the woods, 
where it ought to be done. It is no longer mere bureau work 
of secretaries and bookkeepers. In 1000 we had about eleven 
foresters in this country who understood the business, and in 
1908 we have more than twelve hundred. All European coun- 
tries have schools of forestry, where young men are educated 
to enter upon forest care, both for the public and for private 
individuals as a career. One of the greatest successes of Mr. 
ttuchot is that he has convinced the lumbermen themselves 
how unwise it is to destroy in a few years this source of peren- 
nial wealth. There is no greater reproduction in actual life 
of the fable of the goose that laid the golden egg than the 
cutting off of the forests. The lumbermen now understand that, 
and at their annual meeting they decided to endow chairs of 
forestry in some of the universities. Under the system pur- 
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sued up to the present time the waste was incalculable and 
irreparable. That lumberman made the most money — and 
making money was all that was desired — who could best select 
the trees which would pay the best and could be most rapidly 
and cheaply cut down and conveyed to the sawmill or the 
market. Each year saw tens of thousands of acres rendered 
worthless for all farming or agricultural purposes forever. 

But they saw more than that. These vast fields were the 
storage reservoirs of the rains which held the floods and dis- 
tributed the water during the dry seasons so that the streams 
were kept up, navigation was secured, and farms could be irri- 
gated. But with the woods taken off, the humus gathered there 
for centuries acting as a sponge to hold the water, the soil 
was swept into the streams and down upon the bottom lands, 
and then at the seasons of the melting snow or the big rainfalls 
the torrents did incalculable damage to vast regions of country. 

"We do not have to theorize or romance in order to establish 
the disastrous results of our former practice of lumbering. 
Corporations and individuals were working at their own free 
will and without any Government supervision or control. Fifty 
years ago the white pine forests around the Great Lakes 
stretched continuously across the northern part of the States of 
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They were the greatest 
aggregation in one body of this valuable wood in the world. 

To-day white pine has become so scarce and expensive as to be 
almost inaccessible to the ordinary purchaser. In these forests 
a half century ago was the almost incalculable amount of 3§0,- 
000,000,000 feet, board measure. The great lumber companies 
rushed in, each striving to outdo the other in the harvest of the 
woods. They cut at the rate of nearly 8,000,000,000 feet, board 
measure, a year. They reduced the price by competition so that 
it paid only to take the best trees. The cuttings and the slash- 
ings and the slabs were left and became fuel for forest fires. 
These fires, fanned by the fierce winds of the North, burned over 
the areas from which the wood had been cut and into the woods 
themselves. They burned up the rich soil which had accumu- 
lated for centuries and left only the sand underneath. Then 
came the floods which washed these sands into the rivers, so 
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that many of the streams of the Northwest which were formerly 
navigable are now useless. Not only was it made impossible for 
these woods to grow again, but the whole region became an arid 
and uninhabitable waste. 

The statement has been made that forests cut down this way 
will easily reproduce themselves without assistance or care, 
but it takes eighty years for a white-pine tree to reach ma- 
turity where it can be profitably cut. The lumbermen, in sweep- 
ing off the trees that were marketable and burning the rest, 
destroyed the possibility of a new growth, and the same would 
happen if our present forests were thrown open to this de- 
structive competition. We must remember all the while that 
this destrucion is upon the public domain belonging to the 
people of the United States, and of the property which should 
be for all time a source of protection and revenue to the people 
of the United States. 

With all the figures that were presented here in regard to 
Idaho being deprived of her population in the future because 
of forest reserves within her borders, if I have calculated cor- 
rectly from the figures given — I have not had an opportunity 
to examine them since — there is only 5 per cent of Idaho in 
forest reserves. But under the intelligent supervision and 
under the intelligent care of the foresters to-day we accomplish 
many things. They are running roads through the forests, to 
which they objected. They are extending telegraph and tele- 
phone lines through the forests, which were objected to. 

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from New York 
yield to the Senator from Idaho? 

Mr. DEPEW. Certainly. 

Mr. BORAH. I simply wish to ask if the Senator stated that 
the forest reserves in Idaho are only 5 per cent? 

Mr. DEPEW. That is the figure I have arrived at from the 
statistics presented. Is it more? 

Mr. BORAH. I think it is 30 per cent. 

Mr. DEPEW. It is my mistake. I made the mental calcula- 
tion as the Senator's colleague spoke yesterday. They are run- 
ning telegraph and telephone lines through these forests, with 
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the result that there is free communication in the forests, with 
the result that the homesteader can go through the forests, 
and the wood can be got out. 

It is said the homesteader is deprived of his claim. But 
under the law passed two years ago any land within the forest 
area which is fit for homesteading can be located the same as 
it could ever have been before. 

Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. I will ask the Senator if he is 
informed of the fact that the proclamations creating the forest 
reserves since that time have especially warned every person 
from making settlement therein? 

Mr. DEFEW. I do not know wliat proclamations have been 
issued. But the law lias not been repealed, and every home- 
steader has his right under the law, and any proclamation 
which is in violation of the law is invalid; and I do not think 
such a proclamation would stand for an instant. 

Mr. SMOOT. Mr. President 

The YIOE-PIIESIDEXT. Does the Senator from New York 
yield to the Senator from Utah? 

Mr. DEPEW. Certainly. 

Mr. SMOOT. For the information of the Senator from 
Wyoming I will state that no matter whether proclamalions 
have been issued or not, the^people are now going into the 
forest reserves and making homestead entries there, and within 
the last few months over a thousand have been made in the 
forest reserves in this country. 

Mr. DEPEW. There is another way in which the home* 
steader is protected. He has a home on the outside of the forest 
reserve, and under the administration of this great Depart- 
ment he can get wood free out of the forest for his house and 
his fences and his domestic purposes, while if the lands were 
in private hands, he would be fenced out and he would have no 
such privileges. 

In the course of the debate on this question at various times 
there has been much said about these woods being cleared to 
furnish homes, but our experience has been that the methods 
we have adopted for the clearing of the woods have destroyed 
thousands upon thousands of homes already in existence and 
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left no region within what was the woods which could be util- 
ized for homos. 

Asia in ancient times supported myriads of people in coun- 
tries which are now practically arid deserts. Modern scientists 
have demonstrated that this vast destruction of the productive 
power of the earth to sustain human beings has been the result 
of the waste of the woods. 

Our forestry system, under Mr. Pinchot and his assistants, 
has gone far enough to demonstrate that the woods instead of 
being destroyed in thirty years can last productively forever 
for the people of the United States. With a sufficient number 
of trained foresters, with pathways and roadways, with tele- 
phone and telegraph lines for communication, and with proper 
apparatus, fires are reduced to a minimum and loss from that 
cause is practically eliminated. An intelligent cutting of se- 
lected trees and conservation of growing ones keeps the for- 
ests for all time in healthy and productive conditions. We are 
exhausting the wealth with which nature has so richly endowed 
us at a terrific pace. It is estimated that in a hundred years 
our coal will be gone ; that within fifty years our iron ore will 
be exhausted, and our other minerals will be used up with 
equal rapidity. 

But the forest is never exhausted. It replenishes itself. It 
is a perpetual source of revenue, safety, health, and income, 
and gives to the people of the country comfort and wealth, 
without cost to the National Treasury. Experience and criti- 
cism have done away with every complaint which can be legiti- 
mately laid against forest reserves. Instead of the land being 
taken out of public use, it is preserved for the public use. In- 
stead of grazing upon the public domain being a privilege of the 
strongest and the most unscrupulous, it is uow under the super- 
vision and operation of the Bureau of Forestry, brought within 
the reach of every citizen who chooses to avail himself of the 
opportunity. Of course cattlemen of great resources, who, few 
in numbers, have virtually captured the whole grazing country 
belonging to the United States, make ceaseless war upon this 
opening to every citizen of his opportunity. Of course the 
more unscrupulous of the lumbermen, who would combine and 
seize upon and then destroy the forests, are opposed to the 
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system of preservation, conservation, and sale of the timber, 
without favors to any. 

The home seeker can not complain, because if there is any 
part of the forests fit for him he can locate his farm. If he 
has laid out his home upon the borders of the forest, it is not 
the property of a gigantic lumber company which fences him 
out, but under the rules of the Bureau of Forestry he is per- 
mitted to take the trees that are necessai'y for his fences or 
his house and also the ground for the pasture of his stock. 
Citizens seeking health or sport find that they are no longer 
fenced out or driven out, but that the woods belonging to the 
Government, and, therefore, to the people, are open to them, 
and that the protection granted by the methods carried out 
by the fire wardens protect them from that danger. It has 
boon said that the United States has no right to go into the 
lumber or grazing or cattle or sheep or goat business, but the 
United States has the right, instead of letting a few individuals 
or corporations have the public domain for nothing, to grant the 
privilege to all the people who desire to take advantage of it 
of entering upon the lumber or cattle or stock business within 
the public domain, upon such terms that the people of the 
country shall not be taxed to pay for the privileges which these 
few citizens enjoy. Those who make money by using these 
forests should contribute a portion of the cost of their admin- 
istration and preservation. 

The administration of the forestry division of the Govern- 
ment compares favorably not only with every other depart- 
ment, but with any private business in the country. The for- 
estry administration in 1S00 was without revenue to the Gov- 
ernment, but in 1901 the Bureau had been practically organ- 
ized. Then the cost of administration was $325,000 and the 
receipts $200,000. In 1D07 there was a profit of about $100,000, 
and in 1908 the area of the forest reserves had risen from 
about 40,000,000 to 150,000,000 acres. The cost of adminis- 
tration was, in round numbers, .$3,400,000. If we take out of 
that the permanent improvements and the forestry investiga- 
tion, which is also a permanent improvement, the cost of tfie 
administration was only $1,450,000 and the receipts $2,000,000. 

To show how the people of the Uwited States, without favorit- 
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14 

ism, are enjoying the privileges of grazing within these forests, 
and for which a small charge is made per head, the number of 
cattle in 1901 was, in round numbers, 278,000, and in 1907, 
1,200,000; of sheep and goats in 1901, 1,214,000, and in 1907, 
6,660,000. 

The Government received for these grazing privileges in 1906 
$515,000, and in 1907, $861,000. The timber sold in board feet 
in 1904 was 113,000,000, and in 1907 1,045,000,000. The receipts 
from sales of timber was, in 1904, $5S,000, and in 1907, $6S7,000. 

Mr. President, I submit as an irrefutable proposition that no 
other Department of the Government can show results like 
these. Our one hundred and sixty millions for pensions is a 
debt of gratitude to the men who fought to save the Union and 
those dependent upon them. Our two hundred millions a year 
for the Army and Navy are for the public defense in case of 
war. Our hundreds of thousands for the diplomatic and con- 
sular service are for peace and commerce. Our taxation 
through the tariff and the internal revenue are to pay this vast 
debt of gratitude and the annual expense of maintaining our 
position as a world power. We spend eighty millions nearly 
every year for rivers and harbors, and forty of that is thrown 
away because the streams are filled up again from the floods 
following the deforestation of the lands. 

But here is a Bureau which preserves the streams for naviga- 
tion and irrigation, preserves the mountain sides and the val- 
leys with their productive possibilities for the farmer, pre- 
serves the timber for the manifold uses which are the necessi- 
ties of the American people, and keeps down the price of the lum- 
ber so that it will remain within the economical reach of our 
citizens. At the same time it is carried on with such skill, effi- 
ciency, and integrity that, while thus preserving and enriching 
the nation, its administration is without cost to the Govern- 
ment, but, on the contrary, an annual profit is paid into the 
Treasury. 

Sir, I trust that the amendment of the Senator from Idaho, 
prohibiting the transportation of wood out of any State, will be 
voted down, and that this appropriation, paid for already with- 
out taxation and without cost, will be passed as it came in the 
recommendation from the Secretary of Agriculture. 
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15 

SOIL SURVEYS. 

April 30, 1908. 

Mr. DEPEW. Mr. President, I dislike always in any way to 
disagree with the conclusions reached by a committee, and 
would not in this case have said anything it there had not been 
such a radical change in the bill as it passed the House. 

The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Warren] asks us where our 
information comes from, and if by any possibility it may be 
better than that which the committee received. My informa- 
tion comes from agricultural societies and granges in the State 
of Xew York. I have a letter here from a distinguished agri- 
culturist inclosing a speech made by one of the members of 
the New York delegation during the debate when this subject 
was up before the House of Representatives. 

It seems to me that the only question at issue is the time 
which will be involved in the performance of this work. Every- 
body admits the necessity for the work and its enormous value. 
The question is, shall it be done rapidly or shall it be spread 
over a longer period, and that depends upon the amount of the 
appropriation. 

The information which I have received from these people 
who are so deeply interested and who have consulted with the 
Bureau of Soils is that the difference in this appropriation as it 
passed the House and is cut down by the Senate committee 
makes just double the time required to perform the work al- 
ready mapped out. 

This Bureau has done valuable service to the agricultural in- 
terests of the State of New York. The surveys which it has 
made in the counties along the Lake region in regard to grape 
culture have enriched that industry in that part of the State. 
They are now engaged in two kinds of work which interest 
greatly the farmers of New York, one in relation to the aban- 
doned farms in the Southern tier and the other the cultivation 
of alfalfa for the dairy interests. 

One would hardly suppose that there were abandoned farms 
in the State of New York, but it is a fact that in some of the 
counties in the southern tier the soil has become exhausted. 
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The people of the locality can not, by their own efforts, carry 
on the investigations which are necessary to make those farms 
sufficiently productive for profit or even for a living. The re- 
sult is that farms are abandoned. The work which has already 
been done in a limited way by the Bureau of Soils survey has 
brought many of those farms into production again, and the 
whole of that section is looking with the liveliest interest to an 
immediate and energetic continuation of the work because of 
the results following what the Bureau has already done. 

The dairy interests of New York are among the largest in the 
United States, and those interests have been suffering by the 
exhaustion of dairy soil and are alive to the necessity of find- 
ing fresh materials for feeding stock. It has been found that 
this necessity is abundantly supplied by alfalfa if the soil can 
be located which will economically and profitably produce it. 
That has been discovered in a great district, nearly 400 miles 
in length, between Albany and the Lakes. 

Now, constituents of mine who are interested personally, and 
public-spirited citizens whose studies are in the line of agri- 
culture, feel that unless this additional appropriation is made 
the work both of reclaiming farms and producing alfalfa will 
be delayed, to the infinite disadvantage of the agricultural in- 
terests of the State of New York. 

We find that the committee of the House appropriated, on the 
information which they had, $170,000. Then, in the debate, on 
information received from practical fanners on the floor of the 
House, the amount was raised there to $323,000. Now, the Sen- 
ate committee, on further testimony, has reduced it to $200,000. 

So the whole discussion, from its origiu in the House com- 
mittee until its arrival on the floor here, demonstrates that it is 
a fluid question, to be determined by the information we can 
derive from any source where that information can be procured. 

Under the circumstances, Mr. President, I am compelled, 
much as I regret it, to differ from the conclusions of the com- 
mittee and to vote for the restoration of the amount passed by 
the Llouse of Representatives. 

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